Prairie Week 3 & 4 {Prairie Primer}

Friday, July 15, 2016

Week 3 may have been our favorite week of Prairie because we had another party. If there's not a party scheduled in Plum Creek, we may have to have one anyways. :-) Week 4 was pretty uneventful photo wise, so I'm including it here with week 3.

Instead of dying uncooked pasta as suggested, I bought beads. First, Eliana and Bo made beaded bracelets and a necklace.

Then we made wampum belts. This was so fun that we made a mess of beads and string in the living room... for three days.

The last unfinished one is Bo's. Malachi made several and ran off with them before I could get a picture. These were so fun to make.

We read in The Indian How Book on how Indians found food in the forest and how they cooked their food. I'm really enjoying this book.

I really really wanted the book Foods the Indians Gave Us and a sweet blogging friend sent it to me along with a few others. {{{{thank you}}}} Little Bears Outdoor Adventure Guide was right up Malachi's alley. We also found an illustrated book on Cowboys and Indians at the thrift store - a fun find.

There is a Fry Bread recipe in the Native Americans Thematic Unit - so happy because that is what I had in mind for our Indian meal. There is a great place to get Indian Tacos just outside the reservation by us - they are huge! I haven't had one since I did my dental hygiene rotation on the reservation, but I used to make them at home often (but rarely now since I'm doing THM).

We were to cook the Indian meal today, but instead we planned it for our Indian Party on Thursday, Day 4.

The Literature lesson pointed out that Laura paints such descriptive word pictures in her writing. If only I were as careful to describe the amazing learning moments we share - I try through photos, but I am not a gifted writer and can't describe the meaning that these oral lessons bring to our learning.

We watched several You Tube videos on malaria this week. They were automatically playing one after the other while we worked on our wampum belts, and we found one on the pathophysiology of malaria very interesting. :-) Mostly we learned that malaria is a parasite transmitted by mosquitos, so we cannot build an immunity to the disease. We can only make efforts to prevent it and treat it if it occurs. A parasite is an organism that grows on or in another organism at the host organism's expense. We later looked up natural treatments for parasites in my reference guide, the purpose of a fever, and how/when to treat a fever naturally.

Day 2

Chapter 16 - Fire in the Chimney

Chapter 17 - Pa Goes to Town

Mali and Elli drew a picture of an oak leaf - a white oak and a black oak, from a collection of leaves that I had from a leaf exchange many years ago. These oak leaves came from the southwest corner of Missouri - not far from where the story takes place. I remember being amazed at how big the leaves are compared to our leaves in the north.

Day 3

Chapter 18 - The Tall Indian

Pa trapped and hunted a variety of animals, so we looked up how to build various traps in Living Off the Land. We also read how Indian Trails are Made in The Indian How Book.

There were lots more illustrations in the Little Bear book.

Animals of the Prairie

Can you see them? Animals of the prairie often hide. :-) This is Malachi's page. He added his animals to his flowers page. There is a Great Plains toad, a Rattlesnake, a Prairie Skink, a Plains Garter snake, and a Five Lined Skink hiding in the prairie.

Day 4

Chapter 20 - A Scream in the Night

Chapter 21 - Indian Jamboree

We had bean porridge cold. But, I like 'em hot too. and with potato chips. But I've never had them in a pot nine days old. (How did they even keep that long?)

Eliana and I clapped to Beans Porridge Hot like Laura and Mary did... and then every time we had beans. :-)

We read about Indian games in The Indian How Book.

The kids gathered all their Indian items for our party today - fringed leather jackets that I made for the older boys years ago, skins for trading, leather bags and pouches, and our new wampum belts.

We picked out our Indian names:

Eliana was Quanah, which means "fragrant" and is perfect for her sweet personality.

Malachi was Takoda, which means "friend to everyone" (Sioux), and he does like to have a lot of friends.

Boaz was Tocho, which means "mountain lion." (Hopi) We just liked the sound of it.

Indian Party

We had Indian Tacos with Fry Bread and all the fixings and blackberries (and cherries).

Bo wasn't dressed up, so Elli helped him dress like an Indian, haha.

Malachi is dressed more like a mountain man. :-)

We played Cats Cradle (or tried to) like Laura and Mary.

Laura drank out of a tin cup, so I bought us each a tin cup from Amazon. These are so cute. We use these while camping to make hot cocoa and around the house for drinking water and each kid is responsible for washing and taking care of their cup.

Archery

Well, since we are learning about Indians. :-)

The kids did archery with 4H on Sunday afternoons.

It was about time, so the kids got hair cuts this week, and a hair cut means ice cream no matter how cold it is. I often get compliments on how Bo sits so still to get his hair cut. ;-)

Week 4
I thought this original article was so neat to read for one of our lessons this week:

THE INDIAN MASSACRES.; Terrible Scenes of Death and Misery in Minnesota. Five Hundred Whites Supposed to be Murdered. The Sioux Bands United Against the Whites. FORT RIDGELEY IN DANGER

We read from Frontier Home - such a cool tie in to the end of the book.

I loved that old stout door with the latch string - Pa left the latch string out in case a traveler needed shelter for the night.

I have a note to myself to show you something from the World of Little House, but I didn't take a picture.

I really love this book.

See, it was a really short week on photos - mostly reading and discussion, which is wonderful.

Jordan graduated from college this week. Yay! I still can't believe he's done. He finished with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Diesel Technology with a Certificate in Diesel Tech. He also made the honor roll this semester. :-)

He was right in the front row.

His dad hosted a BBQ for him, for which I was thankful because I hosted a family reunion the very next weekend.

6 comments

YAYE!!!! Comments are back!!!! :) Congrats to Jordan - my husband has been in the automotive industry for nearly 20 years and his comment was: "Oh yeah, Diesel is the way to go... good for him!" :) Loving your posts on this - now I wish I hadn't sold my copy of the Prairie Primer... hehe. Love to you and your family! I absolutely love that you call this post 'light' in photos... haha...

What beautiful wampum belts! My sister, who is a year younger than I am, went to Africa on medical mission trip (she is in med school). She got seriously sick and could not get better. When she got back to the states, she got even sicker. Turns out she had contracted malaria in Cameroon! She had 105 degree fever for days...it was so scary. She tried an experimental drug because they couldn't get any Quinine quick enough. It worked! She still has issues stemming from the malaria, like stomach problems and headaches. Anyway, it looks like your kids are having a ton of fun!

Ok, can I please come spend my childhood with you? I would have absolutely loved every single part of this. The wampum belts are gorgeous! The fry bread looks incredible. You have truly brought these books to life. Precious <3

A huge congratulations to Jordan as well! What a wonderful accomplishment. Honor roll too. Yay!!

Cass, I finally figured out why they weren't turned on - took me a while, haha, even after all these years of blogging. Jordan got his dream job working for Caterpillar - so happy for him {but it also feels good to have prepared him for the world, yk? One down.} Did you know that the LH series has a prequel series that begins in Canada? I was so excited to see that!

Megan, I've never known anyone to get Malaria - how scary. I'm glad she is better, but hope and pray the effects will lessen as her body heals. My kids are still afraid to play in the shade at our place in MT because that's where the mosquitos like to hang out.

Thank you, Jane and Tara, too! It feels like an accomplishment (but not sure how I made it through all that, lol). :-)